


catch and release and fall

by ninemoons42



Series: dance for your heart [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Epistolary, Established Relationship, Inspired by Music, M/M, Noctis is a sweetheart, POV switch, Porn with Feelings, Prompto is a sweetheart, Recovery, alternate POV, and one of them decides to write his words out!, background Gladnis - Freeform, boys being incapable of expressing themselves with words, but hey give them some credit they try, hey look they actually talk!, inspired by theater, oh right they actually have sex here, so you can skip chapter 2 if that's not your jam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:09:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Prompto makes amends, does something he's never done before, says the important things, and throws himself headfirst into love. (Not necessarily in that order.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akumeoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/gifts).



“Play,” he whispers, and he knows from the days and the nights that there are precisely three seconds of static at the very beginning of this particular track.

That’s more than enough time for him to push his eyeglasses higher up the bridge of his nose, more than enough time for him to shake a little more warmth into his shoulders, to rub a rough circle deep into the muscles of his right arm.

Before the music, before the intricate swirling piano melody in its melancholy and its dark whispering countermelodies: the voice, Luna’s voice. Sweet high rising powerful note, that slowly slowly multiplies into a chorus all on its own, the interlaced twining voices and chords that she’s created for the main theme of this show, this thing that he’s going to be doing on an actual stage.

Three weeks before the curtains go up on opening night: three weeks before it’s an orchestra playing these notes, that spur him into motion as soon as he hears his cue, which is a low rolling drumbeat that plays and plays almost beneath the range of human hearing. The secret, Prompto thinks, as he leaps and rolls and flourishes an imaginary cape, the secret is not to listen for the cue.

The secret is to feel for it as it thunders up from the floor on which he dances, that holds him steady and bears him up as he twirls and spins, as he traces long sweeping curves with his arms and his hands and his feet. 

Drums of war, he thinks, remembering the other themes of the story that had created the musical. Remembering the twists and turns of history in the wake of the birth and life and death of Empress Elisabeth.

Drums of mourning, for all the losses that had nearly consumed the woman, that had nearly consumed her country. 

Drums, drums beating out the time for his figures, and he throws his head and his arms back, balancing on his pointe shoes to hold one pose, before leaping into the next, and the next.

Luna’s voice rises again into a melodic cry, and Prompto throws himself into a series of spins and turns, and withdraws, heading for a meeting of mirrors in the corner of the practice room, and he imagines Noctis spinning and moving across the stage in his own turn, as he dances his own introduction.

He closes his eyes and imagines the warmth of Noctis’s hands, clasping at his -- and for all the times they’ve danced hand-in-hand, he thinks it’s still going to be new to him, whenever he touches Noctis. For all that this whole thing had started with the two of them joining hands to what Prompto now knows is the theme to an animated TV series about legends and myths -- it’s still new, and he keenly misses the warmth that Noctis throws off, the heat that radiates from him as he dances.

Prompto shivers, too, and not just because he’s alone in the studio and it’s far too large for just one person to dance in, all by himself: he shivers because the drums have started up again and that means he has to get ready to move to the idea of center stage once again. Dynamic entry, this time, and he runs and leaps and tumbles and he’s circling the spot where Noctis would stand, if he were here, if they were rehearsing this piece together -- he’s supposed to be hemming Noctis in, supposed to be imprisoning him -- 

As he leaps and kicks and mimes threatening gestures at the empty spot -- something moves in the mirrors.

It’s not him; it’s a movement of something dark, like hems, like a heavy coat, like -- 

No.

Please, no, no.

He whispers the words and feels them lock up in his throat, feels his tongue go dry and wooden and useless, and he grits his teeth.

And stops.

The music roars and crashes into its sudden stop -- that’s familiar. That’s something he knows.

The person standing in the doorway stops, too, and freezes in place -- and the person is familiar, but not the shock in his face, not the way he blanches.

Prompto shakes all over, and clenches his hands into fists to try and stop the shaking, and -- it maybe doesn’t work, because Gladio still at the door, raises his own hands. 

“I wasn’t thinking,” he says, quiet rumble.

He sounds nothing like the hoarse poisonous melody that plays in Prompto’s worst nightmares, the whistling that preceded a litany of lies and harsh criticism. 

“Gladio, what -- ”

Another voice, rising, still and also different.

For a moment the light bouncing from the floor and from the mirrors throws flares into Ignis’s eyeglasses, obscuring his eyes from Prompto’s view.

Neither Gladio nor Ignis have that worn-down avaricious glitter in their eyes.

So this might be them. 

Just might be them.

And Prompto whispers “Stop” in the direction of the music player.

In the silence that follows he holds his shirt closed by crossing his arms over his chest, fingers wrapped around his elbows.

“Guys,” he says, taking one step forward, and another. 

Ignis’s eyes narrow, for a moment, before he blinks and takes Gladio’s hand. “Love.”

“He apologized,” Prompto says. “I -- I shouldn’t have been that jumpy either. It’s been a while since that happened. I -- If I’m still not over this thing, I -- I should be working on it.”

“You know that’s not how it works,” Gladio says.

He takes a step forward, too, and Prompto watches his face work, like he’s worried, like he’s a little afraid.

“It’s all right,” he hears himself say as he moves to meet them. “I mean -- it wasn’t your fault at all. Really it wasn’t. My fault for being jumpy.”

“Like I said. That’s not how it works.”

Gladio’s hand is warm enough to almost bear Prompto down to the floor, and instead he just pushes his shoulder up into that heat, gratefully. “Did you like dunk your hands in hot water or something,” he asks, “is that how you get ready to do the writing thing?”

“What are you talking about? I brought coffee,” is the reply. 

“Feels nice,” he says.

“Here,” Ignis says, and hands over a large paper cup. 

And as with the warmth in Gladio’s hand, Prompto holds on to the cup for a long time, letting it soak into his fingertips, into his knuckles.

He sits with them, and sips his coffee -- it’s good, but it pales next to Crowe’s brews -- watches them hold hands and talk quietly, and he fiddles with his smartphone: and after a moment there’s a message from Noctis, flashing onto the screen. 

_You better be on break when you get this. Wasn’t just me who said you’re not supposed to be practicing for four hours without a break. Not allowed to._

He rolls his eyes and types back. _Are you forgetting I was there when Aranea explained it?_

_I remember you were there. I don’t mean to be an ass. I just want you to be okay._

Prompto sighs. 

Switches over to a voice call. 

He hears the soft distant cry of the wind, the muted roar of an engine, and as soon as Noctis says “Hello?”, he says, “You better be in hands-free mode.”

“Yeah, I am,” and that might account for the tinny quality of his voice. “Break time?”

“Among other things,” Prompto says, and he lets the fear break through in his voice.

He’s safe, in the here and now: he’s surrounded by familiar people, familiar faces. 

He still needs to swallow before he can be calm, and say, “There was a small problem.”

“Tell me about it when I get there.”

“That’s why we’re -- extending the break.”

“We?”

Prompto holds the phone out to the others. “Say hello.”

“No more speeding tickets,” Gladio says, without looking up, and he sets aside a stack of papers and picks up another one.

“I’m not telling you not to drive quickly, I’m just telling you to be smart about it,” Ignis says around sips from his cup.

“Must be serious if that’s the sort of thing you’re telling me,” Noctis says, when Prompto presses the phone to his ear again. “Tell Prompto whatever it is, we can talk about it and -- we’ll find some kind of answer. Some kind of solution.”

He can’t help but lean into those words, can’t help but believe in the person speaking those words. “I know you’ll do that. I don’t know why you put up with me but -- I know you believe in me. That’s, that means a lot, you know that, right?”

Noctis’s voice sounds clearer and softer, now. “I think I told you: I’ll keep believing and believing. In you.”

“In us,” Prompto says.

“Yeah.”

That voice is no longer on the telephone.

Or, it’s not just on the telephone.

Noctis stops at the door and knocks, once, on the jamb, before killing the phone call and pocketing his device. “Looks like a party. Which one’s mine?”

Prompto watches as Ignis pushes the white paper bag at his side over, and as Noctis grins and ruffles Ignis’s hair in return.

And then all his senses are suffused by the presence of Noctis, who kneels before him, and smiles, and says, “Hey, this seat taken?”

“Yeah, no,” he says, and that gets him a swift kiss on his cheek, and the smell of sea-salt, and the stink of sun-blasted asphalt. 

Now Noctis is a welcome weight against his side, warmed by the sun, anchoring him.

Petits fours in the white paper bag, arranged in neat rows in two blue-striped boxes. 

Noctis’s fingertips are still stained with chocolate icing when he says, “Okay, we were always going to have a -- sort of a meeting, here, so that’s why we’re all here. But -- Prompto. What’s wrong?”

He finally lets himself say it out loud: “It happened again.” He bows his head, then, pulls up his knees, rests his forehead against his dancing tights. “It was Gladio this time. I, I mistook him for a ghost. For that ghost.”

“I surprised him,” he hears Gladio mutter, to the rustling of sheets of paper. “My bad.”

“It’s cool.”

“Okay, he says it’s cool, let’s all drop the apologies and shit, and let’s -- focus on the other thing.” Noctis looks quietly determined, even as he leans gently into his side. 

And then all their eyes turn back to him, and he needs to quash the urge to hide his face in his hands, in his shirt, in Noctis’s jacket. 

No judgment in their eyes. No pity in their faces.

Kindness is the one thing they all share: not the mealy-mouthed kindness of people who don’t really give a damn. He sees the exact opposite, expressed in different ways: the concern still knotting the lines of Ignis’s face, and the determination in Gladio’s. 

Noctis’s hand slides into his, rough grasp, careful.

“I’m out of ideas,” he says, at last.

“Therapy,” Ignis suggests.

“Not now. After the show.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

He throws him a small lopsided smile. “You won’t have to remind me. I already talked to Crowe -- that’s my boss -- she said she might be able to reach out to someone she knows.”

“Anything else?” he hears Noctis ask.

Gladio shakes his head.

“Okay, so it’s my turn. I -- I called in the big guns. I talked to my mom. And she had an idea, even though it’s a little strange, a little old-fashioned -- her words, not mine,” Noctis adds.

Prompto blinks. “Your mom?”

“Went to therapy. It was part of the whole cancer treatment thing. You can survive a near-death experience like that, but your mind’s going to need some help, too,” he says. “Makes sense, right?”

“Yeah.”

“The thing she did -- she said it helped her deal with some of her demons. No guarantees it’ll work for you, but -- only way to know is to find out. Only if you want to, though.”

Prompto leans into him, too. “Like I said. I’m out of ideas.”

He stares, when Noctis shrugs, one-shouldered, and says, “Ignis.”

Who nods, and pulls out a notebook and a pen from his bag, and hands them over.

Two-tone cover on the notebook, blue on the front and gold on the back, fine-pebbled texture that feels pleasantly rough under his fingertips. When he opens it partway, the pages are neither blank nor ruled: instead they’re covered in a grid of pale-gray dots. 

“I prefer blank notebooks myself,” is all Ignis says. “But I didn’t want to impose my sensibilities on you.”

Prompto nods, and examines the pen, dark-marbled blue and gray that almost, but doesn’t quite match the notebook. 

A pen and a notebook -- an old-fashioned idea -- he looks up at Noctis. “Your mom’s idea. A diary of some kind? Or -- writing letters?”

“Actually all she said was that you needed to write things down,” is the reply. “Like, what was it she said? You download the thing you’re thinking about. Get it out of your mind and onto somewhere else that will hold it. Paper in this case.”

“I’ve never tried it,” he says, softly.

“Which is why we bought that for you,” Ignis says. “In the hopes that you might find some solace in the novelty.”

Noctis is sporting that lopsided smile again, next to him: so Prompto presses a kiss into his hair, and “Be right back.”

And he gets to his feet and makes his way past Ignis, and he sits down next to Gladio. 

“Yeah?”

“You still do any of your writing like this?” Prompto holds the pen up between them. 

Gladio chuckles, and shakes his head. “I don’t use that kind of thing any more. Blame the fountain pen obsession on him,” and he tilts his head in Ignis’s direction.

Ignis only huffs out a soft laugh. “Love you too.”

“But -- writing things,” Prompto insists.

“Yeah, well, I just -- make lists. Over and over and over again. Things I see. Things I hear or read about. I make lists and it’s -- throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

“And -- we’re back to the download.”

Gladio nods. “Yeah, it’s the same thing, we’re just saying it in different ways.”

“Bestselling romance author. Throwing mud at the wall,” but he’s already thinking about -- things he wants to write down.

Gladio chuckles. “Works for me. We good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.” 

He lets Gladio ruffle his hair.

“Noctis,” he says, next.

“Yeah.”

“Can we just -- practice a little, and then -- ” He holds up the notebook. 

Noctis just smiles, and scrambles to his feet. “Somehow I don’t think Sisi would ever dance in -- this,” he laughs: and Prompto doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because these are the times that they now live in, that it’s perfectly acceptable to wear tracksuit pants and sleeveless shirts on the street.

All Noctis has to do is take off the cover-ups: the jacket that emblazons an embroidered winged beast on his back, and the baseball cap on his head, and the sneakers on his feet.

“Shall we -- leave you alone?” Ignis asks.

“No, stay,” Prompto says.

“We’ll keep the critiques down, then.”

“Thanks.”

Noctis is already in the center of the room, stretching, and Prompto’s allowed to watch him, allowed to admire him as he runs through a short routine of lunges and splits. Arm and shoulder stretches. 

“See anything you like,” Noctis says, quietly.

“You know I do,” he says.

“Good.”

“Lovebirds,” he hears Gladio say, as he assists Noctis into a back bend to bridge stand.

He looks over, and snorts, and shakes his head. “Look who’s talking.”

“We’re newlyweds,” Ignis says, and he hears a chuckle in those words. 

“That’s not an excuse for anything,” Noctis complains, but Prompto looks down and he’s grinning, too, at the way Gladio is lying across Ignis’s lap. Papers in Gladio’s hand, and a tablet in Ignis’s, and the two of them are reading and working in different directions, and they’re working on different things, but they’re still together.

He almost wants to capture that thought in his new notebook.

“Music?” Noctis murmurs, when he’s up on his feet again.

“If you need it,” Prompto says, taking his hands. 

“Not really.”

It’s not quite a pas de deux, not in the strict sense of the word, because they’re not just sticking to the classical mimes and poses of ballet.

Noctis hums, a little wobbly, a little off-key, and Prompto still recognizes the wistful melody of the ending: lift and circle and dip, and he’s in pointe shoes and Noctis is dancing on his own bare feet.

But they move easily through the figures that mean: reunion, reconciliation. Notes of hope, cautiously rising. Sisi and Der Tod, united in mutual repentance, and in yearning.

They’ve made a conscious effort to ignore the final poses used in the musical: so Sisi doesn’t end the story clinging to Der Tod, and Der Tod doesn’t end the story with his arm curled possessively around Sisi.

Instead, they’ll end the story with a dip, and they’ll switch off for each show.

So they practice, here and now: and Noctis smiles as he falls back over Prompto’s arm, trusting, pliant.

When it’s his turn, it’s still a surprise: he nearly doesn’t feel the catch, the way Noctis braces him.

He’s too busy looking straight into the spark in Noctis’s eyes.

“Again,” he says, and he pulls himself up and kisses the tip of Noctis’s nose. “Just for luck.”

Noctis grins, and twirls him -- that’s not part of the show -- and says, “Ready when you are.”

“Now,” Prompto says.

That spark in Noctis’s eyes is belief.

And for the first time, he smiles as he falls.

Above him: “Prompto -- holy -- ”

Brief glimpse of surprise in Ignis’s eyes, in Gladio’s.

And he’s being hauled upright and straight into a kiss: a chaste one, but its warmth lingers.


	2. Chapter 2

Not to dance, not to sway into the compelling rhythm of a song, not to rise onto his toes and kick up his heels: all he knows is that he’s wearing black and a heavy cape chained in gold. Gold accents, too, on the sword at his hip.

This, too, he knows: he’s dreaming.

The man kneeling on the floor far below him is the proof of that.

Far below, and all Prompto has to do is to think of those hideous details, those hated lines, to make them appear on that hunched and bowed-over body.

He shakes his head and dismisses the thought: and the huddled man remains faceless and silent.

Wind, moaning, and he thinks he hears his own lonely cries in that sound, the muffled tears and the whispered curses.

“Judgment,” booms a voice: and he blinks, and recognizes the voice as his own. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

And before he can brace himself to hear the answer -- any kind of answer -- Prompto wakes up.

Colored lights streaming in from the windows, where the curtains have only been half-drawn: he thinks he recognizes the distant bright explosions, and -- where in the city are those fireworks coming from, and what are they going off for?

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, and shivers, only a little, when the cool air of the room hits his bare skin.

He doesn’t bother to wrap up, or turn any of the lights on: only comes around the foot of the bed to peer through the wall made of glass, that only looks clear from his side. 

Shapes of cars speeding in blazing long lines of light and motion. They’re high up enough, and it’s late enough, that he can just barely make out the people hurrying along the sidewalks far below.

He looks up at the light-stained sky, at the beams piercing the distant clouds, blurring out the stars.

Next to the windows is a wide-topped table, graceful curlicues of gilt-edging on polished wood, and the first shape he sees on that table is not Noctis’s tablet, or the external battery for his smartphone in its scratched-up silicone case.

The notebook and the pen are familiar objects to him, now, even when he hasn’t even finished filling up two pages in nearly three weeks: his handwriting still slants off-center and downwards, defying the guidance of the grid of dots on each sheet. Smell of green apples lingering on the page, because it turns out that the pen that Gladio had picked out for him contains scented ink.

If he pulls the curtains just a little bit farther apart, he’ll have a sliver of light to write by.

 _Judgment_ , he writes, near the bottom of the second page in the notebook. _I dreamed of judgment. Lucid dream._

Next line. He taps the pen against his lips. 

_Judgment. If it were up to me, I’d ask for just one thing._

_Fuck off. Forever._

He underlines the last word twice.

Thinks some more.

Writes, _I can let go though. Judgment or no judgment. Letting go is also a judgment._

He caps the pen and closes the notebook, and goes to sit in the chair next to the desk.

The fireworks outside taper off into a final coruscating cascade of colors and curves traced into the night, simultaneous explosions, muffled and far away: and he can still hear the other sounds in the room, so he turns his head when he hears the sheets on the bed, rustling.

“Why’re you over there?” Noctis, breathless, groaning.

“Woke up. Had to write,” he says.

“Oh.”

Yawn, only partly muffled in the pillows.

“Why are you writing in the dark though?”

And Noctis waves his hand at the control plate on his side of the bed.

The lights in the fixture that hangs next to the desk come on, molten gold flare, and Prompto blinks the spots out of his eyes.

When he can see again, Noctis is sitting next to his feet, wrapped in one of the blankets.

“I heard you muttering in your sleep,” he says. “I don’t know what you were saying, I wasn’t listening for that. But. You were dreaming, weren’t you?”

“Sorry,” Prompto mutters.

That gets him a poke in the knee. 

“Noctis,” he doesn’t quite whine.

“Why are you apologizing?”

Prompto sighs. “You need to sleep, don’t you? You’ve still got work to do. Other than the dancing, I mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Work’s done. Work was done the second we stepped in here,” and with a flick of his hand Noctis indicates the hotel room around them, shrouded in shadows except for their corner. “Everything else is up to Aranea and the others now. I’m not thinking about producing the show any more. I’m thinking about dancing in it.”

“You still like your sleep,” he says.

“Maybe I sleep a little too much, yeah. I like sleeping, but not if it makes me miss out on things.”

“All you missed was -- the fireworks,” Prompto says, and waves vaguely at the window.

“Tell me about them?”

“Not sure what I can say, since they weren’t here, and I can’t think of any real reason for fireworks in the middle of the week. Maybe some people are, are rich enough they can piss their money away on things going boom. I don’t get that.”

“Me neither,” Noctis says. “What else did you see?”

He shakes his head. “Just -- the night.”

“And your dreams.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not because I don’t want to -- it’s because I’m not sure I get it,” he says, and he slides out of the chair.

The carpet is cool beneath him; in stark contrast, Noctis is warm by his side.

He looks over, and gives in to the impulse to kiss Noctis’s cheek. “You want to lie down?”

“Thanks, but no. Trying to stay awake.” And: “Do you want to? Lie down?”

Does he want to dream again?

Does he want to stay away from those dreams?

He doesn’t know: and that’s what he says. “I -- don’t know?”

Noctis turns to him, then. Takes his hand. “Okay.”

He falls forward into Noctis’s arms, or Noctis gathers him in -- he can’t tell, and his mind is empty, because his dream is in the notebook in just a handful of words, out and away from him, and for now the words can’t hurt him.

For now, the dream’s far away from him.

“I’m -- not hurting,” he whispers, against a wiry shoulder. “I can’t say I like, I like being blank like this. I don’t think it’s a good thing to be blank for a long time. But right now, I’m blank and I’m not hurting. That’s okay, right?”

“More than okay,” he hears Noctis murmur. “Go on.”

He shakes his head. “That’s it. That’s all I’ve got, for tonight. Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow. Right now, tonight -- ”

His back hurts, when he’s bowed over like this -- so he kisses Noctis’s collar bone and sits up.

And then he catches the look in Noctis’s eyes.

“What?”

Slow, sweet smile. “Nothing. Just -- you look like that.”

He blinks. “Like -- what?”

He watches as Noctis looks around and makes a face. “Like you did, that day you got your notebook and I dipped you. You smiled in the middle of rehearsal. I’d never seen you do that before.”

“Too many years of getting smacked for smiling,” he says, with a wince.

“I kind of figured that.” Noctis’s face falls for a moment. “Why do you think I remember it so vividly? And now you look like that again and dammit, I wanted to take a picture, so I could show you. So I could remember -- but phones are over there.”

“So just tell me.”

“You look lighter.” Gentle smile. “Like you could dance on thin air.”

The soft laugh pushes its way out of him, and he covers his mouth, and the sound of it. “I -- thanks?”

“That sounded so dumb, sorry.” Noctis’s grin turns into laughter, too, as quiet as his own. “Broke the mood too. See, this is why pictures.”

“Forget about the pictures. I’d rather laugh,” Prompto says. “I’d rather do -- happy things.”

“Yeah, same.”

He reaches out to Noctis’s smile: runs his fingertips over the curve of that mouth, the corners of his eyes. 

“You look like it doesn’t matter,” Noctis says, softly. “Not right now.”

“I -- no.” He lets the thought form, gives it time, and speaks as slowly as the words come to him.

As clearly as they come to him.

“I don’t know what you think I look like,” he says. “But I can tell you what I feel like, right now, Noctis: it’s I feel like, like that asshole doesn’t matter. Like the years don’t matter. Like the tears don’t matter.”

“Not to be dismissive.” 

“Not to be that. I think I know what you mean. I think you know what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

He looks over.

He can’t place the look in Noctis’s eyes, can’t think of why he looks so brilliant right now, so familiar: all the lines in his face tilted in sweet angles.

He can’t help but draw closer, and pull Noctis closer: catching him by the shoulder and the back of his head, and he’s careful, so careful -- 

Slowly, he watches that mouth round into a yielding “Oh”, so close to soundless he can only feel the breath that brushes his cheek.

He needs to kiss Noctis before he says anything else, and he draws in Noctis’s quiet groan, and it’s all he can do to pull away and let the words out:

“The bad shit in my life -- sometimes you think it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I can make it not matter. And -- and that’s what I’m trying to do right now. Right now, it doesn’t matter. Not to you, not to me. Yeah? Forget it like, like it happened to someone else. Pretend it happened to someone else.”

“Tonight,” he hears Noctis say. 

He nods. “Tonight, yeah. Maybe it’ll last. Maybe it won’t.”

“Doesn’t matter if it lasts or not. You’ll still be you. And because it’s you, then -- then I’ll stick around. And everyone else. But -- if you’ll have me,” Noctis says. “If you’ll let me stick around.”

He thinks about it.

Asks, just the one word, “Space?”

“I’ll ask for it. You’ll ask for it. We sort of have to do that,” and Noctis isn’t just saying those words.

There’s something deep and strong beneath those words. 

Prompto thinks back to falling over Noctis’s arm into a dip: last time, the last time before opening night, somewhere in the middle of the last dress rehearsal.

Something good. Something he can rely on.

He kisses Noctis again, and whispers, somewhere in the middle of those kisses, “If you’ll have me, too.”

“Always.”

It’s almost painful when Noctis moves away from him, but it’s only a temporary thing: he gets to his feet when Noctis does, and follows him, trusting, back to the mess they’ve made of the bed. Back to the rustle of the sheets and the pillows scattered every which way.

Flat on his back once again, and Prompto all but melts when he finds himself looking up into the brilliant happiness that lights Noctis up like fireworks, like morning’s last lingering stars flaring in defiance of sunlight -- Noctis falls onto him, then, and how he manages to keep looking up at him between kisses he doesn’t know -- for Noctis kisses him hot and wet and dirty and, and he’s starting to feel warm, like there’s something sweetly sharp trying to claw out of him, something good, something needy -- 

“Please?”

He only knows it’s his own voice because of the echo of the word on his mouth.

It’s all Prompto can do to hang on, when Noctis moves away from his mouth: teasing, nipping, tracing him with teeth and tongue. He lingers in the hollow of Prompto’s throat, worrying the skin there, carefully; he licks along Prompto’s shoulders, one and then the other. A kiss that begins in the inside of his elbow and gets dragged down to his wrist, to the palm of his hand -- and Noctis licks at the fingertips of his other hand before reversing the movement on his other arm. 

Before he can recover from that there are hands stroking firmly up and down his sides -- Prompto’s gasp dies in his throat as Noctis thumbs circles over his chest, narrowing to his nipples, coaxing them into points of flaring bright sensation: one and then the other, and then both at the same time, and he shouts, doesn’t know what he says -- 

But he hears and _feels_ Noctis’s low growl, like he might be enjoying this, and desperately he writhes up. Pulls gentle and blind at Noctis’s body, open-mouthed gasping kisses, and Noctis is in his lap now -- long lean legs wound around Prompto’s waist, the weight of ankles crossed in the small of Prompto’s back.

Dazed like this, kiss-drunk like this, Noctis is beautiful, and Prompto drags kisses up and down his neck, too, and somewhere in the middle of all this Noctis starts moaning his name, just his name, over and over, softer and softer and more lost each time, and his voice is spurs and lash and whip to Prompto, and every time he heaves in a breath his skin brushes against Prompto’s cock, and he’s already all but dizzy with need: “Want you, want you -- ”

The world blurs out around him as he traces the contours and the lines of Noctis: and this should be familiar, now, should have been something he knows right in his own skin, long before they ever wound up in bed together. He’s had his hands on Noctis all along as they freestyled together in the studio, time after time. As they learned the intricate steps of Der Tod and of Sisi.

This is the same, their bodies moving together: but Noctis is shaking and clinging to him, is gasping out his name, as he drags his hands down and runs his knuckles over Noctis’s cock, already wet at the tip.

So this is different: and reluctantly he coaxes Noctis off -- there’s something so good and so right about Noctis holding on to him with his entire body, tangling him up, keeping him close -- and then he pulls him down to the bed, so they’re lying on their sides and Noctis’s back presses into his chest with every touch, every breath.

“Going to,” he whispers into the back of Noctis’s neck: and he bites, right there, nothing to hurt, and Noctis cries out, writhes desperately, struggling to get closer --

Gladly, Prompto obliges him: and he gets them both situated. His cock in the cleft of Noctis’s ass. One hand on Noctis’s hip to press him closer, and the other wrapped firmly around Noctis’s cock.

“Good?” he asks, breathless, knowing he needs to ask.

“Please,” is the answer, no more than a sigh.

He rolls his hips forward, long slow deliberate, and Noctis laughs breathless encouragement and then, then it’s like losing his mind in the good way, like losing himself in the movement of his body and of Noctis’s, as he strokes Noctis to the stuttering rhythm of his own pounding heartbeat, to the staccato of Noctis’s faltering breaths, skin against skin with all the barriers between them coming undone for this, just for this --

How long he moves and thrusts and strokes for, he doesn’t know, he’s not keeping track of it: he’s just listening for Noctis, for the increasingly frantic whispered cries falling from his mouth. 

“Close close close -- ”

“Fuck,” and Prompto muffles the word into Noctis’s hair, into the back of Noctis’s neck, speeds up and gasps and doesn’t stop until Noctis goes rigid in his arms, until Noctis is coming into his hand, and that’s relief all on its own -- relief that feels just as good as the orgasm that hits him in its own turn, and he chases that all the way down, thankful for it, thankful for this.

Thankful for the fact that he can take his time in coming back to himself: and he blinks and pulls in a soft surprised breath, because Noctis has cleaned them up. Has turned around in his arms. 

Soft kisses, that he eagerly returns. 

And before Noctis can ask, he says, “I’m all right. Better than all right.”

“Good.”

He kisses the corners of Noctis’s smile. “You?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You blew my mind. Let me get back to you on that.”

He doesn’t have the heart to make fun of that pleased smirk.

Clean breath, all the way down, as he tucks himself closer to Noctis.

“Can I say something,” he hears Noctis say, just as he’s drifting off. “And you don’t have to say anything back. I just -- I just wanted to tell you this -- ”

So he says it, too, just as Noctis does:

“Love you.”

Voices in sync.

Words, said together.

“I really do,” he hears Noctis say.

And Prompto just hitches him closer.


	3. Chapter 3

_Dear Cindy_

_I know, I know, I know. I said I would write to you. I also said I’d try my best. And for a long time there I didn’t have the strength or the words to reach out. Not just to you. I couldn’t reach out to anyone, literally to anyone. I was like that for, for a long time. One year of silence isn’t as inexcusable as three and a half years, but still, that’s another long time to say nothing. Second time too, if we’re just talking about you and me. So: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t reach out to you, when I said I would. I’m sorry I disappeared on you again. I know I’ve flaked out on you a lot and I can only hope you’ll be able to forgive me. Now I have people to remind me to write to you, though._

_How are you doing? How is your granddad? Please tell me he’s okay. Please tell him I miss those messes he used to make. Does he still brew that rotgut in the green bottles? I’d really like some now._

_I miss you. I miss you both. I hope you’re okay. I said that already, didn’t I? Shit. Well. I have paper and I have this pen. You’ll think it’s funny, huh, me writing with ink that smells like apples? It was a gift from my friends. Speaking of which. You remember that box of books I sent you for your birthday? Cindy, I met the guy who wrote those books. I met Gladiolus Amicitia and -- and we might be friends now. He’s cool, and so is his husband -- his name is Ignis -- he’s such an amazing guy, and he used to dance and now he’s a teacher and -- he’s the good kind of teacher. I promise. I’m learning from him, and he says he wants to learn something from me, too, and -- I don’t know. I feel safe when I’m hanging out with them. I feel safe even when Ignis is saying, do this or do that or try dancing this way. Isn’t that strange? But they’re Noctis’s friends and I’ve become their friend too._

_About that. Noctis. I -- are you actually going to believe me when I tell you I met him? More than that. Noctis Lucis Caelum. Even you know who he is, and -- and Cindy, I’m with him now. I dance with him. He dances with me. I always tried to find something good in the dancing even, even back then, and he’s such a good dancer and he makes me smile, when we’re dancing together. When we’re together. Just -- I know, it’s so weird, how do these things happen to me? But apparently this one did. I met him and I danced with him and now, now I dance with him and -- and I get to go home with him after we’re done dancing. His mom is really nice. She’s really funny when she watches cat videos._

_But. Well, you knew there was going to be something like that. So, well, you always wanted me to tell you what I was really thinking. You let me tell you what I was really thinking. So what’s really going on is this: I still wake up screaming. I still want to break down and cry. There are still days and nights that are painful like that. Sometimes I think Noctis and the guys, Ignis and Gladio, they’re the weird kind of enablers, because there was this one time Ignis saw me being upset and what did he do? Most people would have told me to, to shut up and deal. Not him. He looked in his kitchen cabinets and gave me this really ugly little plate -- it was really bad, I felt sorry for the gold trim -- and he told me to like break it, just -- I could take it out on that plate, he said, and he’d be happy to see it go. Weird! But yes, I felt better after breaking it. I did clean it up for Ignis, though, it was the least I could do._

_They’re encouraging me to go to therapy, and to do things like that, and. I don’t know. I wanted to ask for your advice. I know, I know, I’m asking you for so much._

_So, yeah. The bad days are the bad days. And there are good days. More of those, now. Maybe I should have written that down first. There are more and more good days. Maybe sort of because I’m so busy? Busy like -- I don’t know if you’ve heard -- busy like I’ve been dancing on stage busy. I’m in a show, Cindy! I’m dancing in a show! I’m on stage! And Noctis is dancing with me. He’s playing Empress Elisabeth, and I’m playing Der Tod. I’m playing Death. It’s just him and me on the stage for the whole thing. It’s strange, and it’s good. The music was created by Noctis’s friend Luna. We’re doing it partly for charity, there’s a bunch of groups Noctis is supporting, but the one I wanted to mention is the support group for survivors of abusive relationships. Yeah, that’s a thing now. I want to explain that to you._

_We have two more shows to do before we’re done. And -- and I would like to invite you to the final night. You and your granddad. The tickets are going with this letter. I can help you with, with the other things, too, like a place to stay and however you’re getting here. Gas money or bus fare or whatever. Let me know if you need any help with that and -- and please, please say you’ll come. I would really like to see you._

_(Ignis is reading this letter over my shoulder -- I asked him to read it, so you know he’s not snooping or anything, he says he only snoops in Gladio’s fan mail, and maybe he’s joking about that? I don’t know -- and he says I should also add the last thing I just said to him. So here goes.)_

_I would really like to see you. And I want, I want you to see me. Like up on stage. Like, dancing._

_You always told me I’d find something I really wanted and really needed to do. You always had a kind word for me, even when I had nothing to give you in return. You never even asked for anything from me in return, and for that, thank you. So -- please let me send you these tickets and this letter and -- and all my love. All the thanks I never got to say. Let me write them to you now and let me, let me have a chance to say it all out loud to you and to your granddad._

_(Oh, now Noctis is here. He says hello. He also just said his mom was flying in for the last two shows we’re doing. So no pressure, right? Wow. This is all happening to me now. This is me now. My strange life.)_

_Your friend always Prompto_

**Author's Note:**

> Finale to [dance for your heart](http://archiveofourown.org/series/871320)! Thank you for reading and commenting and enjoying!
> 
> ninemoons42 on Tumblr: [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)


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